


A Little Would Be Enough

by human_dreamer_etcetera



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Melancholy, Morse's College Years, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/human_dreamer_etcetera/pseuds/human_dreamer_etcetera
Summary: Some pining, past and present, from Alice Vexin, interspersed with memories of Morse's college years, from the outside looking in.
Relationships: Endeavour Morse/Alice Vexin, Susan Fallon/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 15
Kudos: 16





	A Little Would Be Enough

**Author's Note:**

> I set myself the goal a while ago of writing an episode tag, just for the sheer challenge of it, and settled on probably Rocket. i was pretty deeply into Those Binary Stars at the time, though, and determined to keep only one WIP going at a time. This fic eventually insisted it deserved to exist, however, mainly because I found myself relating to Alice in a sense I probably shouldn't delve too far into semi-anonymously on the internet - and really, who hasn't considered the possible outcomes of getting something that was once everything you wanted? Except the story that really seemed to want to be told was about Morse's Oxford years, from the perspective of someone even more on the periphery than he felt he was. I think I probably wrote Alice perhaps a little cruelly here, but then, this is herself from her own point of view, and all about something she probably felt quite guilty about. 
> 
> It's probably worth noting that while I've tried to keep as close to canon as possible with regards to the Oxford set (and historical reality for Oxford itself), I know there are references in Inspector Morse that I may not have matched exactly; I did my best without falling down a rabbit hole I suspect I'd never find the end of!

Looking back, Alice wonders if she fell halfway in love with him right from the start, even knowing he couldn’t be hers. It wasn’t until second year - Morse and Susan already established as a couple - that she joined their group, after all. Well, “joined” was perhaps too strong a term. She’s always been only vaguely attached, hovering somewhere on the periphery; even now, she’s asked to things only as an afterthought, occasionally, when Susan passes her in the hall on her way out somewhere and sort of halfheartedly invites her to tag along. Alice knows she should have enough self-respect, or at least a decent sense of shame, not to cling on to these infrequent invitations so desperately, and yet she does - because she knows, wherever Susan is, _he’ll_ be there. 

Morse.

He was first introduced to her as Pagan, of course. It wasn’t until later that she learned his real name - what little of it he’ll share with any of them, that is. Alice has to assume that Susan at least knows the whole of it, although it would be just like her to pretend he’s told her only so she can loftily reference some shared secret. Alice still vividly recalls that first meeting - of course she does, not that she’d ever admit to how many times she’s turned it over in her mind, rehearsing all the small details, reaching for each word uttered, painting a careful coating of bright gold over each brushstroke of memory. More than anything, perhaps, she remembers the biting loneliness and a small spark of hope that perhaps with this set, at last, she could finally make a lasting connection. 

Susan had dragged her to lunch at this point a handful of times, and Alice always pretended she didn’t know it only happened when other plans had fallen through. She’d met Anthony Donn, too, once or twice, when he stopped by their table to trade jokes and lecture notes with Susan. So she’d sort of clung to him on that first group outing she attended, falling into step beside him as they walked down to the river, while Susan busied herself verbally sparring with Bruce Belborough over some political debate Alice would never admit to having no knowledge of. Bruce and Anthony - the latter now intermittently going by Tony, trying on names like ties; they all did: even Susan had confessed she was really Wendy, but decided early in first year the name felt too childish - carried picnic baskets, Susan and Alice bottles of wine. 

The four of them were just about down to the river when the most beautiful boy Alice had ever seen joined them. A breathless grin lit his face. It was one of those transitional autumn days that seems determined to feign summer, and the newly mottled leaves plucked out the loveliest strands of red and gold in the newcomer’s hair, the bright and open sky above reflected in the fierce blue of his eyes. Alice found herself immediately captivated by the light freckles dusting his cheeks, and then, as suddenly as the swooping sensation in her stomach appeared, it turned to something like nausea as he casually tugged at Susan’s hand to pull her away from Bruce and in for a kiss.

As the couple slowed their pace to stroll behind the others with hands clasped, Bruce’s hooting and Tony’s eyeroll accompanied by a beleaguered sigh told Alice this was a well-worn routine by now, despite her own unfamiliarity with this startlingly stunning someone who was clearly Susan’s boyfriend. Tony, gracefully realizing the gap in Alice’s knowledge, made the requisite introduction: “That’s Pagan, Susan’s prince consort,” he said, with that sort of dismissive air Alice had come to associate with the highest echelons of Oxford society. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imitate the tone, which was surely only borne of a luxurious ease she could scarce aspire to.

“Is he, then? Pagan?” She’d tried not to let her true confusion show; after all, it seemed the sort of thing those of their class might try on for a lark. A burst of laughter from Bruce and Tony brought a fire to her cheeks; would she never learn what to say around these types?

To her embarrassment, she realized a beat later that Susan and her beau had nearly caught up to them already, so that the latter had surely heard Alice’s faux pas. She decided to embrace it, and hope they’d all find it an amusing joke, or at least the charm of the uninformed, rather than some brash intrusion.

“Surely he must have some religion,” she went on, and, emboldened as Bruce pulled Susan aside to rummage through her basket for something or other, Alice slowed her step so she could walk side-by-side with this Pagan for a bit. “What did your parents raise you as?”

She was met with a raised eyebrow, but where she might have expected austere judgment, he appeared more baffled than anything else. “Er - hello to you too, then,” he said, rather awkwardly.

Alice felt herself go red as a tomato. “I’m sorry, I - Tony was just telling me you go by Pagan. I assume there’s some story behind it?”

To her surprise, Pagan went a bit pink at that; she felt the instant kinship of two out-of-step souls. “Did he? Well, I suppose it’s as good a name as any. And what should I call you?”

“Oh! Oh, I should have started there, shouldn’t I? I’m Alice, Alice Vexin. I’ve a few classes with Susan this term.” 

Anthony turned back to face them, walking backwards. Taking pity on Alice, he explained, “Morse here refuses to tell us his Christian name, see. Must be burdened with some truly hideous clunker of an appellation, I suppose, for the shame of it to drive him to such secrecy.” He and Morse exchanged the sort of look that told Alice they would have stuck their tongues out at each other like brothers, had they been unfettered by the expectations of adulthood. It instantly endeared them both to her. “And so, without a Christian name, he must surely be Pagan.”

She hadn’t learned till later that Pagan was closer to her sort than theirs, a sheep among wolves, snatched up out of the circles to which both he and Alice were more typically relegated when the likes of Susan Bryce-Morgan had taken a shine to him after leaving some other, probably more suiting, bloke. Despite his clear belonging, hanging on Susan’s arm, he seems as uneasy in this crowd as Alice herself does: like Alice, his membership was bought on Susan’s whims, a fact which neither seems likely to forget. Even when he’s supposed to be at the group’s center, ruling alongside its reigning queen, he always appears off-balance.

Alice has guarded her secret crush closely. She sees Morse mostly in passing, brushing past each other on the way to class - she tries to ignore the electric thrill - or waving from across the stair when he comes to visit Susan. Now and then, she’s invited out with them - drinks in town here, a bonfire there - and always her eyes are drawn to the boy she cannot have. She takes Alex Reece up on a date once, despite little attraction, just because she knows it means making up a four with Susan and Morse; even the rain and Alex’s wandering hands can’t dampen her good mood, just to be near the one person she can’t get off her mind. She semi-consciously recites each conversation for weeks, months afterward, singing herself to sleep with shimmering shards of the past.

And then comes the day Susan grows bored of him, or finally decides someone like Morse simply won’t do for the aspirations she’s set for herself, or whatever other reason she decided to call off their engagement. Alice has heard all the rumors that she’s gone back to Henry Fallon, a previous boyfriend, and by all accounts a type much more suited for the sort of high-profile marriage expected of someone like Susan Bryce-Morgan. Whatever the real reason, however mundane or salacious, Susan tosses her erstwhile fiance aside like an accessory gone out of fashion, heedless of inflicting heartbreak.

And Alice can’t decide between fury at her supposed friend, and some sort of perverse gratitude.

**

Alice chooses not to take sides, not visibly, at least. Really, she’s only properly met Morse a handful of times, not enough to voice her disapproval of Susan’s treatment of him. It’s Susan she’s most connected to of that set, though even now, she’s still only tenuously connected at all. By the luck of the draw, though, she and Susan are currently partnered on an assignment; Alice has managed not to say anything to even hint at Susan’s romantic pursuits for the past three hours, and has steadily ignored any of Susan’s attempts to steer the conversation anywhere close.

They’re on their way out, carefully sticking to the sort of light, inconsequential chatter at which Susan excels and that makes Alice feel sort of hollow, when out of the corner of her eye, she spots the very subject they’ve spent the afternoon avoiding. She opens her mouth to say something - whether to greet him or distract and redirect Susan, she isn’t sure - but before a word can leave her mouth, Pagan spots them. Heedless of the curious eyes around them, he leaps out of his seat and flat-out _flees_ , sprinting past the stacks and out the door. Alice only just catches the horrified expression on his face, and feels an answering sickness in her stomach. In the past weeks, his face has thinned out, cheekbones sharp as arrowheads, and his normally bright eyes are shadowed with sleeplessness. Even knowing she has no right, Alice worries.

Susan’s jaw has dropped. “Well,” she splutters, at a loss for words. On that, at least, Alice can sympathize.

“Well,” she echoes, and that one vague word sounds far off, as though part of her has followed after him after all. She sort of wishes she had. Clearly, he needs a friendly face, someone to listen as he pours out all the pain of his fiancee leaving him. If only she could…

Said fiancee frowns and asks, “Should I go after him, do you think? Bruce says…”

Without waiting to hear what Bruce says, Alice shakes her head vigorously. Bruce has never really understood Pagan all that well, anyway. Of all of them, Tony seems the closest, though he’s always rather hesitant, at least from an outside view. Alice suspects it’s because he’s always been afraid to say anything to Morse that would jeopardize his standing in Susan’s eyes. She wonders if Susan knows the power she wields, if she revels in it or it simply slides past her awareness, as her birthright.

“I think he just needs space,” Alice says, when what she wants to say is that Susan is the last person he needs to see right now.

Susan hums uncertainly, and dithers for a moment. “I’ve got dinner plans,” she says finally, in that uncomfortable way where it’s clear she’s trying to determine how to avoid inviting Alice along. “Are you heading back now, or…?”

Alice feels as though she might scream, if she has to spend another minute wearing this itching mask she can so rarely take off around people like Susan. “Actually, there’s something I need to…” She gestures vaguely, indicating the looming stacks stretching back behind them. Susan nods, accepting the flimsy excuse, and once she’s gone, Alice doubles back to the table Morse abandoned.

In his haste, he left behind his notebook, still open to whatever he was working on. Beside it is a slim book, seemingly already pushed aside. Alice expects to see translations or perhaps a rough outline of an essay. Instead, the page contains only what looks like the lines of a poem, copied in Pagan’s scrawl:

_I keep such music in my brain_  
_No din this side of death can quell;_  
_Glory exulting over pain,_  
_And beauty, garlanded in hell._

_To the world’s end I went, and found_  
_Death in his carnival of glare;_  
_But in my torment I was crowned,_  
_And music dawned above despair._

The book, Alice notes, is indeed a collection of poetry - by Siegfried Sassoon, the spine proclaims. Well, that has Pagan written all over it, doesn’t it? She isn’t quite sure what to make of it, actually. It seems alarming at first, all that war imagery, but then - well, the overall message is rather optimistic, isn’t it? Maybe a positive sign after all. But then, it doesn’t look like anything he’d be studying for Greats, and with term more than halfway through, it’s not as though he’s got all the time in the world for mooning over poetry in the Bodleian just for fun. According to Tony, Pagan hasn’t shown up for classes in two weeks. They’ve all been worrying about him, in their various ways. 

Well, there’s only one thing for it. She’s got to return the notebook, at least, and perhaps talk some sense into him besides. Moping over Susan forever won’t do him any good, not if he gets sent down for it. Maybe, she allows herself to half hope, he just needs someone to talk to. And maybe, if she’s there for him when he needs a shoulder to cry on, then… Well, one step at a time, right? She slides the notebook into her bag, determined to swing by his room before she makes her way home tonight.

Later that evening, she hesitates a moment outside his room, one half-formed fist raised to knock. Music swells out from the crack beneath the door, at such an awful din that at least she can be sure he must be alone: surely no visitor would put up with blaring opera in their ears. She thinks of the poem on the page and hopes very much that Pagan is centered on the music dawning over despair part, rather than the death and torment bits.

For a fleeting instant, she nearly gives in to the cowardly impulse to nudge the forgotten notebook under the door and flee. Then she remembers the expression on his face earlier, when he saw the two of them in the library - a wretched blend of misery and panic - and she summons her courage. Someone has to talk to the poor soul, and it might as well be her, right? Feigning a confidence she hopes to eventually feel, she raps loudly on the door, hoping he can hear over the soaring notes of his beloved opera.

Somehow, he does manage to hear her knocking, and flings the door wide, welcoming her in with a sort of halfhearted gesture. His eyes are decidedly red-rimmed, Alice observes, and she feels a pang of sympathy alight in her chest. He goes to turn the volume down, and Alice hovers awkwardly just inside, bouncing on her toes, wondering if she should sit or if that’s too presumptuous. When it becomes apparent that Pagan - now flopped unceremoniously onto his bed - isn’t likely to make his wishes on the matter known, she cautiously nudges a pile of wrinkled shirts off the only chair in the room and sits as primly as possible, ankles crossed, worrying her lip between her teeth.

“You left your notebook,” she says, after an uncomfortable silence broken only by the heartfelt wailing of some lovelorn soprano, thankfully now somewhat muted. “At the library, earlier.” 

He glances up at that, and she holds out the forgotten item like an offering. “Thanks,” he says, dully, and she can feel her mouth settling into a frown.

“Are you all right?”

He lets out a hollow laugh, wicked as a lie. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

She ducks her head. “Well. You looked like you’d seen a ghost, before you ran off.”

He shoots a smoldering glare at the wall, vicious enough that she half expects something to ignite. “Maybe I had,” he mutters. 

He’s drunk, she realizes belatedly. Further gone than she can remember ever seeing him; worse than the time he sprained his wrist playing tennis with Susan - quite badly, or so she’d been told. Susan had brought him back to her room and bandaged him up because it was Sunday and the only nurse on at the infirmary had a sharp tongue and a judgmental stare and no tolerance for frivolous injuries; and then she’d come ‘round to ask if Alice had any more booze to numb the pain in the absence of proper painkillers. She still remembers the way he’d lolled across Susan’s lap when she came back with a second bottle, and the way she’d wanted so desperately to take Susan’s place, wished it could be her own fingers carding through his coppery hair and gently taking his hand to examine his wrist, bruises showing up darkly against pale skin…

Although, now that she thinks of it, there was that time that Bruce had dared them all to a drinking contest: this might be on par with that, maybe. It was one of the few times Alice had been invited to tag along with the whole group, and she spent the whole night achingly aware of her status as an outsider. She had also, shamefully, spent the night pining ferociously over Morse. Even when he’d staggered off into the bushes to throw up, some part of her had wanted to nurse him back to health or some such nonsense, maybe walk him back home and get some water and paracetamol into him before tucking him into bed. Instead, she had to watch as he became increasingly affectionate with Susan, pressing sloppy kisses to her temples, resting his head against her shoulders. With a painful jolt, Alice recalls slipping off for a long while, just out of the twisted desire to see if they’d notice she’d gone; and when she reappeared by the bonfire, Bruce - apparently always a belligerent drunk - had one finger pushed tauntingly against a bellowing Tony’s chest, and Bruce’s girlfriend at the time was quietly sobbing off to the side, and Susan and Morse were slumped half-asleep against a log, arms around each other and fingers entwined; and not one of them asked where she’d been. And as Alice fell asleep, despite the fire, she trembled, the warmth leached from her by some deep and lonely chill, wishing and wishing, and wishing she weren’t.

It wasn’t long after that night that Susan had come back to campus flashing a glittering diamond everywhere. 

With effort, Alice drags herself back to the present. Drunkenness explains the wobble in his step when he’d crossed the room - what she’d taken for uncertainty or even some haze of depression; even the short distance from record player to bed seemed to take a toll. Really, the fact that he can still string sentences together may be a minor miracle. 

“Pagan,” she says softly, urgently, and then - because that doesn’t feel right, too impersonal - she corrects, “Morse. You’re not alone in this, you know. If it helps—”

“Nothing helps,” he says morosely, and she bites back the urge to reply, _Well, the alcohol certainly doesn’t!_

When she walks away that night, she realizes it’s entirely possible, even likely, he won’t even remember their conversation. Yet another time she’s faded into the background, overshadowed by Susan as always - even, this time, in absentia.

**

She runs into him again for the first time in seven years, at work of all places, and what she sees is not so much the too-familiar face in front of her as a thousand raw, striking memories of that face, one which she once would have given anything to see turn in her direction. And like she’s been transported right back to 1958, there it is again, that piercing, icy blue gaze, fixed on her yet still not quite seeing her.

He looks so much the same, she thinks, achingly so. A little older, perhaps, thinner in a way that begs for a home-cooked meal, cheekbones more prominent, and the telltale lines of a permanently fixed frown. None of that’s entirely new, though. He never quite seemed to fit in at Oxford, not with that crowd anyway, never did let his guard down. She can tell right away that it’s much the same now, that he may have found his calling, but he’s yet to find his place in the world. He’s still got that lost boy look, punctuated here and there with a sheepish smile, that always made her want to take care of him. Funny, isn’t it, how easily two people can fall into the same awkward, halting steps that carried them toward and away from each other, even all these years down the line?

He’s a policeman, now, of all things. Well, that does seem to fit, with his keen sense of justice. He always was the sort to divide everything into black and white. She’s pleased to learn that he remembers her; at least, when she reminds him, he does. Her name, though, that he places all on his own. It’s nice, not to be entirely forgotten. It all feels a bit like something fated.

**

It had escaped her, somehow, how angry he could be, always so on edge. It comes back to her, watching him amongst his peers, as the investigation drags on. It comes up somewhat naturally, on their “date” that’s really a transparent attempt at gleaning information. It’s almost a relief, that he’s gotten no better at subterfuge in the intervening years.

He admits it, even, as though daring her to call him out on a pattern he knows all too well. “I like the work,” he says, when she asks him about the police, with the caveat, “To be honest, I’m not sure that I fit in.”

A slight smile graces her face as she listens to him recount his attempts to ingratiate himself in the circle in which he found himself, back then. She recalls the group of them gathered around a table, lingering long after lunch, debating the merits of various philosophers; she can still vividly hear Morse and Bruce and Alex verbally sparring, Anthony - the peacemaker, as ever - attempting to intervene, can see herself and Susan huddled together to roll their eyes and gossip, ignoring the boys. She’d forgotten, for all her resentment of Susan, just how often she had wanted to _be_ her, had craved the other girl’s attention and approval just as much as she wanted to take her place. Whatever spirited argument was taking place, she recalls it as another conversation she could follow well enough to voice her own opinion, had she dared - though she never had. 

Interesting, isn’t it, how she’s fallen silent again, in this same and different life? How Susan and Bruce and all of them have been replaced with the Brooms, haven’t they, come to think of it?

“You were all corners, socially,” she says, remembering. Where Alice had rounded herself out, ground away any hint of nonconformity, Morse had sharpened his opposition, highlighted his edges. He would never belong, and the world would know he had rejected it before it had the chance to reject him. “Contra mundum. But yourself, most of all.”

Just as he so often did then, he averts his gaze, deflects. “I think we’ve heard quite enough about me. Tell me about you.”

The old bitterness crawls back up her throat. “You mean tell you about the Brooms? That is why you asked me for a drink.” Best to get it out into the open, isn’t it?

He doesn’t deny it. Before long, an uncomfortable silence drags them both back on paths well-trod. She admits to something she should perhaps have only hinted at, and he covers his face, as though shamed - whether for her or himself, she can’t be certain. His voice is pained as he calls her out on her attempts to invoke the memory of Susan between them. It’s cruel, perhaps, the way they’re both dragging each other through the past again, yet she can’t seem to help it.

“Maybe you could love me too,” she presses, trying her damnedest to keep the desperation out of her voice. She’s come too far now not to try. For that girl who stayed awake night after night, wondering and longing, she has to try. “Just a little. A little would be enough.”

He’s called away, then, but she already knows what the future holds. She sees the same sadness in him that called to her back then, the same agony of a fellow lonely soul, and this time, maybe, she can soothe it.

**

And so she goes to him, after the truth - or whatever awful facsimile of it exists - comes out. She bounces on her toes as he carries on the charade of propriety, even as she can see his patience fraying. 

“You heard about the Brooms?” he asks.

“I didn’t come to talk about the Brooms,” she replies.

**

The weak morning light reveals a truth Alice has avoided looking at head-on for more than seven years. She feels it weighing on her, unspoken and unspeakable in the fraught silence as they go about their daily routine, readying themselves to re-enter the world outside this fragile cocoon they’ve constructed for themselves.

Morse believes, after their night together, that there’s something there between them, a hope alighting. Alice can see it, the quirk of a smothered smile, the way he waits outside the door expecting her to lean in for a kiss. She doesn’t want to break his heart quite yet, decides to give him a day to relish the possibility first. It sounds magnanimous that way, like she’s giving him some sort of gift, rather than conceding to the ugly selfishness she’s begun to suspect is at her core.

It can’t last. She sees the light on his face when they meet up that evening, and she wants to pinch herself. He catches on to her hesitation quickly.

“You’ve changed your mind?”

“I have,” she admits, feigning steadiness. It’s unfair of her to have pulled him into this charade, really, though she isn’t quite sure whether she regrets it.

“It’s all right.”

“Is it?”

“ _No_ ,” he says, with startling vehemence. His face is open, unguarded and wounded, and she can see in him the lost and lonely boy he was once. Maybe he still is, but she isn’t who she was then, or who she wanted to be with him by her side. A beat passes, and he tries to cover over his honesty: “Yes. I suppose.”

“You’re not ready. Not yet,” she says, and though the words are directed at him, she can hear them for what they really are, a stab at herself. She gives him an excuse about being second-best, a consolation prize, and knows it’s not an accusation, but a confession. This Morse, the one in front of her, could never truly capture her heart, not when the one who's existed for so long in imagination has held it so tightly. He may or may not still be in love with Susan, but what matters - what she wishes didn’t matter - is that she’s still devastatingly in love with the idea of him, the young and yearning Pagan she met while they were up, and the real thing can’t compare.

“I’d have been happy with that, once,” she says wistfully.

He exhales. “The moment passed.”

She doesn’t have the heart to correct him, to explain that the moment exists eternally in a shining, perfect encapsulation, and this attempt to break the seal has nearly burst the bubble. Some things are simply better left in the past, where they can be ground down into something that makes sense, where the grubby present cannot corrupt them with its inscrutable machinations. She walks away, leaving the ghost of memory trailing somewhere between them.


End file.
